Thousand Trails Review

Well… If you consider this camping! I gotta say, since becoming a Thousand Trails member in December 2018, I just keep getting more and more impressed with the value of what you get. Especially if you are thinking about full-time RVing. We will be doing a little review on each place we stay at this year to help others decide if a Thousand Trails membership is a good fit for them, or if you’re already a member and just want to see a little more about a particular spot. So far, just after two months time, 18 nights booked at 6 different campgrounds/RV parks, I can honestly say we absolutely love it. Here are some of the points that we feel need highlighting and also some of the negatives.

Price

The year-long camping pass, including one zone, is $585 on their website. They run deals often to get $100 off, like this one that we are offering to our friends and family. (We’re not picky about our friends😜) $100 bucks off! This camping pass allows you to stay from 1 to 4 consecutive nights at parks in your zone back to back (yes, you could do this all year-long!), or if you stay 5 to 14 consecutive nights in one park, you will then have to be outside their system for the next 7 consecutive nights before booking another stay. Your one included zone has 8 to 23 parks depending on the area and you can add additional zones for $54 each yearly.

Convenience

Booking and changing reservations couldn’t be easier thanks to their online membership website. You can search campgrounds by zone, state or the map view, which we use. From there a couple clicks reserves your spot. You can also edit your reservations online anytime prior to your scheduled date of arrival without a fee. Trust me, this is slick.

Options Options Options

The one great thing about camping and RVing is that there is really no one right way to do it. You can be as minimal as a car and a tent all the way up to the big diesel pusher buses that are larger (and nicer) than our last apartment. Each Thousand Trails location we have been to has done a nice job of having amenities like pools, hot tubs, wifi, fitness centers, libraries with books/dvds, mini golf, basketball, playgrounds, laundry facilities, walking paths and much more. They also put on nightly/daily activities like potlucks/dinners, poker, arts/crafts, and ice cream social if your into that to name a few. Or you can completely stay to yourselves and just enjoy your wooded campsite if that’s how you like to get down. It’s camping your way.

Nature and the Great Outdoors

The campgrounds in Thousand Trails camping pass are in some beautiful locations, with woods, rivers, ponds and acres of room to roam. The wildlife is absolutely amazing and you’re right in the middle of it. For an extra $214 per year you can add-on the Trails Collection- (Link) – which is 100+ more Encore RV resorts and more top campgrounds. The Encore resorts have a different set of rules than your main membership, most notable you can not park hop. Stay up to 2 weeks at any listed Encore location and then you must be out of both systems for 7 nights. These locations are more like RV parks and less like campgrounds. Meaning, they usually located along the coasts and are more resort like with their options being a little nicer than the campgrounds. But, not always! Check out more of our Thousand Trails reviews and Encore reviews below.

You Can’t Always Choose Your Neighbor…. Or Can You

In our short experience, the RVing community is like a big extension of our family. It’s unbelievable the kind nature of the people we have run into. In the past few weeks we have had our neighbors loan us an 8 foot step ladder, an extension wash brush, a large clothes drying rack and offered up the

use of “all” the tools they had and the help of her husband the next day. I’m not sure if they can smell the newb on us, or just feel bad because we’re in a van and don’t have the storage to bring our whole garage, but it’s amazing the offerings we get when they see me climbing atop our 10 foot van using a picnic table as a ladder. I’ll admit, it is a funny site to see clothes draped over our make shift lines out the back of the van! We found that if you walk around with a smile and say “Morning”, most people reciprocate and are just looking for an opportunity to chit-chat. I have read a few reviews that say the fulltime residents are rude to the RVers that are there for just a visit, but we just haven’t found that to be true.

Locations of Parks Could Be a Problem

Depending on which zone you chose you could have as little as 8 available camp grounds to choose from and almost all parks are more towards the outer skirts of the U.S, leaving some big gaps out there.

Facilities Aging

Some of the facilities are a little out dated and honestly look like they are from the early 80’s. This doesn’t really bother us that much and we also see the opposite were they have some really nicely updated bathrooms and common areas. They just seem to be a little slow in updating from what we’ve seen.

Is It Worth It?

All in all it comes down to where you live and how you much you travel to get the most value out of it. If you’re only going use it a few weeks a year it’s probably not worth it, but if you spend a month or more out there in campgrounds and RV parks it’s definitely something you should check out. And like I said…… here’s a $100 off your camping pass. $100 bucks off! We love our membership and we do get a small kick back for the use of our link. So, thanks and see ya out there! If you have any questions about this Thousand Trail review feel free to reach out in the comments.